A Torah scroll. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

It should not surprise us that AI reflects so much of ourselves. After all, it is a creation of human minds.

The Book of Genesis tells us that God created man in His image. In our own limited way, we have followed that same pattern, creating something that bears the imprint of its makers. AI has no soul, no conscience, no moral compass of its own. It draws its knowledge, language, reasoning, virtues, and flaws from its creator — humanity. What it produces reflects the handicraft of its creators.

Like Adam in the Garden of Eden, AI entered the world as something new — full of promise and possibility. Yet every creation carries risks along with potential. Just as mankind was granted the power to create, build, and transform the world, we were also burdened with the responsibility to exercise wisdom and restraint. The story of Genesis is not merely one of creation; it is also a story of consequences.

The lesson may be that creation itself is not the only achievement. Stewardship is as well. We are judged not only by what we bring into existence, but by how we govern it. AI may become one of humanity’s greatest tools or one of its greatest mistakes. The outcome will depend less on the intelligence of the machine than on the wisdom of those who created it.

In that sense, AI is more than a technological achievement. It is a test. A test of whether human beings possess judgment, humility, and moral discipline necessary to control what they have created.

For when we look at AI, we are not merely looking at a machine. We are looking at a reflection of ourselves, our knowledge and our ignorance, our virtues and our vices, our aspirations and our fears. As with every mirror, what troubles us most may not be the reflection itself, but what it reveals about the one who stands before it.

Since retiring from IBM, Steve Wenick has served as a freelance book reviewer for HarperCollins Publishing and Simon & Schuster. His reviews and articles have appeared in The Jerusalem Post, The Algemeiner, Times of Israel, Philadelphia Inquirer, Attitudes Magazine, and The Jewish Voice of Southern New Jersey.